


That One Thing

by Jillypups



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bronnaery, Dango, F/M, Fluff, I can't help it, Modern AU, city slickers au, dango unchained, hahaha, hahahahaha, how many times have i put idk what's wrong with me in the tags, idiocy tbh, idk what's wrong with me - Freeform, just go with it, of course, sansan, umm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 21:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9257708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/pseuds/Jillypups
Summary: City Slickers AU.After all three besties hit rough patches, Sansa decides they  need to pull a Billy Crystal and go on a cattle drive to clear their heads and try to find that one thing.They find three.Picset





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bex_xo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bex_xo/gifts), [SassyEggs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassyEggs/gifts), [sarahcakes613](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahcakes613/gifts), [vanillacoconuts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillacoconuts/gifts).



Sansa stands there with three plane tickets clutched in her hand like a bouquet of flowers, beaming a smile so big it covers her head to toe. One tall, auburn beam of wag-your-tail excitement. Which is already enough to make Margaery suspicious, considering the last time her roommate and co-best friend wore that expression she had signed them up for six weeks of 5am boot camp fitness.

“You’re making me nervous,” Dany says from where she’s been curled up for basically two days now, after one of the biggest fights she and her brother have ever had.

The last time they fought, Dany dyed her hair black and got a tattoo, so all in all a self-imposed stint of reclusion isn’t _that_ bad but still, their friend is clearly hurting. Though to be fair, she’s still only drinking chai instead of booze.

“Yeah, same here,”  Margaery says from the kitchen doorway before taking a sip of sparkling wine, even though it’s only the afternoon on a Sunday, because when you get fired at 4:55pm on a non-payday Friday after working your ass off for four years in a cutthroat marketing firm, you self-medicate.

“Well, it _should_ be making you excited, because I’ve booked us for a three week cattle drive vacation,” Sansa says, flinging her arms into the air as she tosses the plane tickets in the air like confetti. “In _Wyoming_!” she adds, as if it’s the cherry on top, as if it isn’t absolutely, positively, the worst thing she could possibly say.

Wyoming? What the hell is in Wyoming, Margaery thinks with the slow shake of her head. Oh, wait, she just told us.

Cattle.

Everyone is silent for several seconds as Margaery and Dany stare with open mouths at their so-happy-she-sparkles friend, their dearest bestie who, at least where Margaery is concerned, has lost her goddamn mind.

 _Cattle_?

Dany bursts out laughing. “You’re high.”

“Have you been drinking my wine?” Margaery asks.

“Drunk _and_ high,” Dany self-corrects with a nod.

Sansa huffs. “Come _on_ you guys! _City Slickers_ was on television the other day and it just, you know, gave me the idea. We’ve all had a _terrible_ past few months, and I think we all deserve to find that one thing, like in the movie. I certainly do after what happened to _me_.” She arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Or do I need to remind you?”

Dany glances at Margaery with a frown and a wince. Poor Sansa. Family feuds and getting fired really don’t hold much a candle to walking in on some girl blowing your boyfriend in your own bed. She’s lived with the two of them ever since she moved out of Harry’s apartment. Sansa had cried so hard she threw up, and the other two girls spent days nursing her back to the level of normalcy required to be seen out in public. Apparently they did a pretty good job, all those weeks ago, because now their dearest friend wants to drag their asses not just to the café on the corner with the cute barista boys, but to fucking Wyoming.

With the cattle.

The two of them shrug as Margaery leans against the door frame and Dany heaves a sigh of the utmost resignation.

“Are the tickets at least first class?” Dany asks with a sliver of hope.

“Of course! Do you think I’m an idiot? I know us better than that. My _god_ you guys, we are going to have _so_ much fun!” she squeals before picking up the tickets from the floor and running to fling herself onto Dany, who oofs and laughs with a groan as she’s pounced.

“Well, you’re not an idiot,” Margaery says before draining her glass, and she sets it down on the counter behind her before slip-sliding in her socks across the floorboards to throw herself into the cuddle puddle. “But you’re _definitely_ crazy. Wyoming?”

Sansa just laughs. “You’re leaving out the fun part.”

“Rattlesnakes?” Dany asks. “Sunburn and a sore butt? Cows?”

“Nope,” Sansa says with a smug sort of smirk. “Cow _boys_.”

 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Sandor mutters as he comes to stand next to Bronn with his arms folded across the breadth of his wide chest. “Did they- are those suitcases on wheels?”

Bronn chuckles. They’re both standing on the long covered porch of the ranch’s big house, squinting as their guests spill out of the airport shuttle. There’re the types they expect and usually get, middle aged men with designer plaid shirts stretched over their pot bellies, bored teenagers in tow while rapid-fire texting. But then here come three pretty girls, one of them in high heels, dragging their wheeled luggage through the dirt and gravel while laughing and chatting, three different shades of wind-whipped hair, sunglasses and jeans that look expensive even from here.

“They belong in a mall, not on a ranch,” Bronn says as the screen door behind them creaks open, and he glances back in time to see one of the other wranglers emerge.

“Fresh meat, I reckon?” Drogo asks around a mouthful of food he’s still chewing. He grins and hums when his gaze falls on the same sight Sandor and Bronn are fixated on. “I do love me some fresh meat.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sandor says with the shake of his head as the girl in heels trips and falls to her knees with a shriek.

“At least it’ll be more interesting than another vanilla guy’s midlife crisis,” Bronn says, trotting down the steps to go help the girl.

“Oh _thank_ you,” she breathes once he reaches her, her hand warm and soft in his as he hauls her to her feet. “That little pothole snuck up on me.”

“I think you mean gopher hole, out here,” he chuckles. “And anyways, you don’t think it might be those crazy shoes of yours instead?” he asks her, holding her steady with the clasp of their hands as she adjusts the strap of her shoe while balancing on one foot.

She’s pretty, all metropolitan flash and enough makeup to be on the cover of a magazine, and he’s always considered that type of woman to be a little too much to maintain, but now that’s he’s got a bona fide city girl in his sights, Bronn’s starting to see the appeal. Soft like those expensive sweaters his mother always pined for, glossy like lacquer. Did he mention pretty?

“I know, I know,” she says with a laugh and the roll of her eyes. “This trip wasn’t exactly my idea, though, and I neither own a pair of cowboy boots nor have the money these days to go buy some.”

Huh, Bronn thinks. She looks more expensive than his whole paycheck.

“Well, anything would be better on a ranch than those things. Sneakers, rain boots, hell, even flip flops,” he says.

“Pfff,” she huffs with a smile. “I wanted to look my best. You never know _who_ you’re going to meet,” she smiles with the squeeze of her hand in his, which serves to remind him they’re still holding onto each other, which in turn makes his cheeks flush as he lets her go. “Do you?”

It’s all he can do not to glance down and inspect his own outfit, so instead he does a quick mental inventory of dirty-boots-dirty-jeans-clean-shirt-clean-Pendleton. “No, I guess you don’t,” he says.

“I’m Margaery, by the way,” she breathes, and when she bites her lip and grins, Bronn finds he cannot help but grin back.

“Good to meet you, Margaery. I’m Bronn.”

 

They’re two days into the drive, dusty and saddle sore and bone weary, but since one of the wranglers, a guy named Bronn that Margaery can _not_ stop talking about, has gone after a missing calf before they head out, they’ve been able to linger this morning before breaking down camp and heading out. Sansa is exhausted, bleary-eyed and sipping coffee while she sits in a fold-up chair by one of the campfires. Margaery is still in their tent, snoozing away. But then there’s Dany off in the distance, balanced in perfect inversion doing her daily yoga routine.

Sansa is jealous of her energy and discipline, but right now also a little grateful for the distraction, considering that the big cowboy with the scarred face has caught her watching him work about fifty times already. He barked at her once too, thinking she was ogling his scars, which admittedly did take all three of them slightly aback when they first met, but he was sorely – saddle-sorely – mistaken. She was _this close_ to saying “More like your shoulders, you big lug,” but instead she just turned beet red and walked off.

She keeps her eyes glued on her friend, making it a point to ignore Sandor. Dany doing downward dog. Dany doing crow pose. Dany doing warrior stance. Sandor currying his horse. Sandor hefting one of the cattle dogs up on his saddle like it doesn’t weigh an ounce. Sandor walking this wayohhhh crap oh crap oh—

“What the hell is she even doing?” he asks, taking the piece of straw he was chewing on and pointing it at Dany.

Sansa’s heart pounds, and suddenly she’s wide awake.

“Um,” she says, struggling to sit up straight in her slouchy camp chair. “That’s yoga.”

“Yoga, huh,” he says, sticking the straw back in his mouth as he looks down at her with a squint in the early morning sunshine. “What, like Yogi the Bear?”

She laughs.

“No, no picnic baskets with yoga. It’s exercise.”

“She’s just standing there though,” he protests, and to Sansa’s surprise he pulls up one of the empty chairs scattered around the fire ring and sits in it, a few feet away from her.

“It’s harder than it looks, believe me. You use muscles you’ve never even used before. Even a guy as big as _you,_ ” and crap, there she goes, she did it.

His eyebrows raise and her heart keeps on racing and then, _then,_ he glances at her mouth. Oh sweet baby Jesus, she’s going to pee her pants.

“Oh, yeah? You do that yogi bear stuff too, I reckon?”

“Mmhmm, and I bet I could outlast you.”

He throws his head back and laughs, a sharp bark that echoes amongst the hills that surround the long stretch of yellow grassy meadow they’re in. Sansa grins, all triumphant flirt out here, all brave new woman out here under the blue sky where nobody’s ever cheated on her. The wrangler named Sandor sits back in his canvas fold-up chair and regards her, the gnarl of his scars blurred out by the late autumn sun.

“All right, sunshine. Try me.”

 

The river can hardly even be called that, considering how shallow it’s gotten after a long summer of drought, but it’s still deep enough that when that pretty girl Dany’s horse spooks mid-crossing and bucks her off and into the drink, she goes under completely. Then again, that could simply be on account of how tiny she is. Dainty even, though Drogo’s never been the kind of man to throw that kind of word around. Immediately he swings his leg over his horse’s neck and leaps off into the water. It comes up to his waist and he has to shove his shoulder into a couple of cattle rumps and bellies in order to slosh his way towards her.

“Hey!” he shouts as he crouches down and sweeps his hands through the churning, murky, muddy water. “Hey, Dany!”

Drogo catches the slim bough of her upper arm, a slippery eel of soft skin and bicep and elbow, eventually of wrist as she almost slips from his grasp, but then he yanks and she pops up gasping.

“Oh my _fucking_ god, that water is _freezing_!” she yelps as Drogo drags her against his chest to keep her safe amongst the passing herd. He can’t help but feel pleased when she clings to him in the current.

“Watch your language!” one of the Shania Twain wannabe soccer moms says as she rides past with her young son wedged between her and the saddle horn. “Or do I have to report her to Mr. Selmy when we get back?”

“Fuck off,” Drogo says offhandedly as he brushes Dany’s wet hair off her forehead with the heavy sweep of his thumb, frowning as she coughs and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “She almost drowned, she’s allowed an eff-bomb, for fuck’s sake.”

“And I paid just as much as you did for this trip, bitch!” Dany shouts, her cheek pressed to Drogo’s chest, her hands two fists to the half-wet shirt on his lower back as she glares at the offending patron.

“Technically,” says her redhead friend as she and Sandor cross the river side by side on two paint horses, “you still owe me your share. Check’s in the mail, I guess?”

Sandor snorts and clucks to his horse, pulling ahead so that Sansa is free to give Dany a huge grin that even Drogo can interpret. His coworker would have kittens, knowing a girl was fawning over him.

“I know, I know, I owe you,” Dany laughs. “Especially now that I realize how freaking fun this is.”

She’s a warm little thing with river-cold hands, a dazzling smile as first she glances and then gazes up at him. Warmth, even in this freezing ass river. Tiny to the big of him, and yet he’s got the sneaking suspicion that she’s got way more aces up her sleeve than he does. And he’s the one who’s actually _wearing_ sleeves, despite the cooling temperatures.

“One thing’s for sure though,” she says, giving him a brief squeeze before pushing off of him to grab up her horse’s reins. A look at him cast over her shoulder before she puts her foot in her soaked stirrup. “I think I _definitely_ owe _you_. Thank you, cowboy.”

It’s not quite as easy to interpret as her friend’s expression over Sandor, but when they finish crossing and he pulls a blanket out of his bedroll and tosses it over her shoulders, unbidden, he’s got the butter-on-cornbread of her slow smile as she burrows under the Mexican blanket his grandmother made for him. The lift of her eyes as she looks at him, the way she bites her lip and lets her eyes drift down the length of him as he lopes his horse next to her.

 _That_ he understands plenty well, and he makes a mental note to make sure he sits next to her during dinner.

 

“So there’s not even going to be a party when we get there?” Margaery asks, all chipper bright cute as she sips hot cocoa from her mug.

“The party is the fact that we get there,” Bronn says.

“That’s not much of a party,” Margaery says with a huff, with a puff of breath on her cocoa before she sips it.

Sandor rolls his eyes.

“Oh, what,” Sansa murmurs from his right side, and when he looks her way she’s got this serene little smile on her face. “It really _isn’t_ much of a party. Not when it’s basically a going away party. I mean, come on, Sandor,” she says, nudging the canvas arm of his chair with her elbow. “We’ve known each other nearly three weeks now. That’s not insignificant.”

“Uh,” Sandor says with a flush of heat to his cheeks as he stares into his speckled cobalt ceramic mug. “I need a refill. I’ll uh, you know, just go get that,” he says, hauling himself to his feet to make his way to the chuck wagon.

They’re a few days from Selmy’s other homestead in southern Utah where the cows will winter, enjoying the fire and hot chocolate Hot Pie heated up on his portable Coleman grill. Sandor’s used to the slow emergence of camaraderie amongst the guests, but Sansa wasn’t wrong when she mentioned significance. He’s gotten more comfortable with her and her friends than he’s ever been with the guests before. Which is surprising on several levels, namely that they’re out and out city girls. But they cottoned on to the ropes of the drive far quicker than he initially gave them credit for, and it’s no longer a surprise to see Dany, Margaery or even Sansa break ahead from the others and ride side by side with the wranglers. What still surprises Sandor, however, is how Sansa without fail always rides or sits next to _him,_ and how that doesn’t annoy him like it usually does when people pester the shit out of him.

Fact of the matter is, it makes him sweetly, darkly, overwhelmingly pleased, which is turn makes him uncomfortable.

Margaery shrieks about some four foot snake even though it’s way too late at night for them, and Sandor rolls his eyes when she finds her way into Bronn’s lap. Typical, he thinks as he uses a pocket flashlight to pick his way through the meadow grass towards the chuck wagon. These girls may be quick learners, which he can appreciate, but they’ve also done more than a little manipulation of certain events. I mean, sure, he thinks as he digs around in one of the kitchen dry boxes for his flask of brandy. Dany totally did fall in the water and need to get warmed up, though Drogo sure as shit seemed more than ready to strip down and do the whole skivvy skin heating blanket trick that night. Those two have been thick as thieves ever since, same as Bronn with Margaery, from the moment he hauled her ass up out of the dirt back at Selmy Ranch. And then there’s—

“Any more of that?” Sansa asks, materializing out of nowhere with her slinky sexy slide to his side.

Sandor jumps like a 6’5” cat.

“Jesus, you came out of nowhere,” he says as he tries to master his heart rate, not that he’s doing much good, what with her standing here, ever close to him.

“Well, you’ve been sneaking,” Sansa says, honey soft and bright even in the pitch black sway of high elevation grasses. “And I didn’t make my butt sore all day from riding to sit around sober when I can get a tiny little buzz.”

And now all Sandor can do is think of her ass, not that he hasn’t already spent plenty of time doing that these past few weeks. Her with her fancy cowgirl boots, currying horses and hauling saddles around, trying to pet cows and, like she did once before they left the ranch, put goddamn flower crowns on the calves. Her ass, though.

Christ, her ass.

“Well? Are you going to share, or do I have to call you out for being greedy?” Sansa says, most of her face a shadow though some of the multiple campfires cast wan glows of pale orange on her cheek.

“It’s mine, so I’m not being greedy, I’m just drinking,” Sandor says, but when Sansa holds out her mug, he tips the flask and pours a healthy shot of brandy into her cocoa.

She beams.

“Thank you, Sandor,” she says sweetly. “No better way to warm up than a liquid blanket.”

Sansa stands up on her tiptoes, and before he knows what’s going on she’s leaning up and in to him, her neck a long stretch like a water bird in flight, and he’s no Romeo by any goddamn means but suddenly it’s like their bodies are having a conversation. Her throat and the close of her eyes are asking a question, and his body replies like it knows how even though _he_ certainly has no clue. All the same, he inclines his head, curves his shoulders so they can meet, and when they do it’s through the light kiss she presses to his good cheek. Something strange and inexplicable happens in his heart, like the slow thaw of a small frozen stone.

“I, uh,” he says. “I. Huh.”

“Hopefully that will help warm me up, too,” she whispers in his ear before lowering back to her the heels of her boots. “If you can think of anything else, let me know.”

Sandor stares at her retreating figure, flickered with firelight here in the pitch black night air, watches the sway of her hips before he snaps the fuck out of it. She kissed me, he thinks as he hastily dumps a shot of brandy in his mug. He grins to himself before hustling back to the campfire with his heart banging like a dinner bell in his chest.

She kissed me, he thinks as he sits back down in his chair, sneaking a glance at Sansa, who is sipping her drink with demure serenity, who slides him a quick and devious little grin before returning her gaze to the fire.

And I’m going to kiss her back.

 

“Will he let her up for air, you think?” Margaery whispers.

Dany exhales a laugh.

“I don’t know if Sansa really wants air at this point. Looks like she’s living off Sandor instead.”

They’ve been hiking around the area for about an hour, now that the evening’s campsite has been set up and they’ve been untethered from further duties, and she and Margaery have had fun following the meandering path of a creek cut deep into the earth. It’s a good ten feet down to the water, and they’ve seen crayfish and minnows and one _very_ irritated ground snake that made them both shriek and scramble up the bank on all fours.

That was _nothing_ compared to this discovery. Sansa stretched out on hers and Sandor’s jackets with Sandor above her, and they are sucking face like absolute and utter teenagers. The boulder and aspen tree they’re next to might as well be bleachers, and the babbling brook from a few yards away might as well be a Homecoming cheer.

“Come on, let’s go,” Dany whispers, taking Margaery by the hand as she turns away and walks back towards the creek so they can cross it and give these two their privacy.

“Looks like Stella got her groove back,” Margaery says with a chuckle once they’ve put enough distance between the lovebirds and themselves.

“You’re one to talk,” Dany says lightly, bumping her shoulder against Margaery’s.

“Hey now, I am _just_ flirting for the fun of it,” her friend says a little over-quick, though Bronn trotting his horse past them can’t be much help.

They smile and wave and make small talk with the other wannabe wranglers in Tommy Hilfiger jeans and Louis Vuitton plaid, chat and laugh and deflect further conversation as they head towards the chuck wagon for Lipton tea and cookies.

“I didn’t mean him,” Dany says with a chuckle as they drop each other’s hands and load up paper plates with shortbread and chocolate chip cookies. “I mean _you._ Just you. You seem lighter and happier out here.”

Margaery hums a moment, tilts her head as Dany pours them two tin mugs of tea. It’s been wonderful, watching her friend open up and shake out the cobwebs, the sullen funk she’s been in dissipate like morning fog. Dany’s felt a little bit of that herself, out here. Putting physical distance between her brother and herself has felt _so_ good, and there’s nothing quite like yoga out in the middle of nowhere to offer more than a little clarity.

“You know what, I think you’re right,” she says after they’ve claimed a couple of chairs at one of the many campfires scattered around their dusty camp.

“Of course I’m right,” Dany says with a grin and the toss of her hair over her shoulder. “I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Back at you, sweetheart,” Margaery says, and she reaches over and tugs a lock of Dany’s hair. “Which is why I’m going to tell you I think it’s time you went back to blonde.”

“You’re actually a blonde?”

Both women jump in their canvas chairs, nearly spill they tea as they look back over their shoulders at the huge hulk and bulk of Drogo, who somehow managed to materialize out of nowhere despite his size. He’s sweating in the sun and hefting an apple in his hand, and he’s looking at her with keen interest, like he’d maybe take a bite out of her instead of the fruit he’s got.

“Yes she is,” Margaery says before taking a bite of shortbread. “A smoking hot one at that.”

“Margaery, quit it,” Dany hisses, flames on her cheeks even though she’s secretly sort of delighted her friend said it.

“See for yourself,” her friend blazes on, leaning to one side to dig the iPhone out of her rear pocket, and she scrolls through her photos before finding one from the Coachella concert they went to a couple summers ago.

Dany wore nothing but vintage slips the entire weekend and only occasionally wore a bikini top in lieu of a bra, so she knows it’ll be a good one. Plus, Margaery knows full well what she’s doing. Dany couldn’t find a better promoter if she paid money for one, so she puts on her best poker face and kind of hopes the picture makes him spring a boner.

“Hot damn,” Drogo says after a long, low and slow wolf whistle, and Dany watches him zoom in on the photo, squint and grin at her photo.

“Isn’t it more flattering?” Margaery says, and she stands up and walks around to his side to inspect the photo herself.

“I don’t know,” Drogo says, peering from the phone to Dany and back again. “I guess I’d have to see the blonde in person,” he grins, handing the phone back to Margaery before he walks away.

“In your dreams!” Dany shouts after him, heart racing at the flirt of him, at the shoulder swagger and stride of him, and she’s grinning when he turns around, walks backwards so he can address her face to face.

“You’re already in them,” he says, rubbing the apple on his shirt before he takes a bite of it. “I’d be happy to add another one.”

“Hot damn indeed,” Margaery says with a wink, and when she holds out her mug, Dany can’t help but clink hers against it in a toast of victory.

 

Even though they’re headed south, they’re still north enough that the days never quite warm up enough to Margaery’s liking, not with her southern blood. Even so, the chill doesn’t take away from the breathtaking landscape or lessen the pang of longing she feels, gazing at snowcapped mountains in the middle of a bleached-grass meadow. She’s always felt more connected to magnolia trees and red brick verandas, the tame side of nature with mowed lawns and manicured flowerbeds. But _this._ This kind of beauty is rugged and wild and unhindered, with only rambling wooden fencing giving any sort of hint of civilization. The post-dawn sky yawns high and wide above her, wider than the entire world, which she’s always known on an intellectual level but never with such breathtaking proof.

She’s been watching the sunrise streak the cloud-studded sky with pinks and pale purples, here on her black horse named Whisper, and even with the heat coming from the creature and fro the several layers she’s in, Margaery shivers, and not just from the temperature but from the lovely sight before her. And, when the gentle whicker of another horse alerts her attention to the wrangler approaching her and she twists in her saddle to look, another shiver at the lovely sight behind her as well.

Bronn’s in a cowboy hat and a thickly padded plaid jacket, mud-caked boots and jeans so faded you can hardly discern the white frays from the denim. His horse’s breath puffs from her flared nostrils and her head bobs as they pick their way through the frost-covered grass towards her. Margaery bites her lip and returns her attention to the sunrise, or at least looks and acts like it, because her thoughts are suddenly all wrangler, all flannel, all calloused palms she’s fantasized about for weeks.

“You’re up early,” he says once he reins up his horse beside hers, a rust colored mare with a mane to match. “Had me worried for a minute there, when I didn’t see you at camp waking up with the others.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she says with a luxurious sort of sigh that belies the giddy sort of quake that’s going on in her heart to know that he was thinking of her, looking for her, worried about her. “This place is just too beautiful for its own good.”

“Something tells me you’d know all about that,” he chuckles.

She darts a quick look his way, and he’s got a grin at the ready for her when their eyes meet. He shrugs with the simultaneous lift of an eyebrow. Margaery laughs. It’s not that they haven’t been flirting hardcore heavy since she and the girls got here, though this is probably as point blank bold as either of them have gotten. She wonders what the cattle drive equivalent of giving a guy your number is. Calf branding? No, probably not. Hog tying?

Hmm.

“Um, anyways,” she says hastily, grateful for the nip in the air to blame for the high pink that’s likely flushing her cheeks right now. “Yeah, it’s just too beautiful. It’s going to break my heart going back to L.A.”

“Good old Smell A,” Bronn says, belting out a laugh that echoes when she leans over to swat his arm. “Hey now, little lady, I’m not the one saying I don’t want to go back.”

“True,” she says with another sigh, more wistful than the first. “But like, I _have_ to. It’s home.”

“Is it? I reckon home is a place where you always want to head to at the end of a long day.”

Margaery smiles. It’s down home, good ole boy wisdom, but there’s an ache in her heart at his words. If only life were so simple.

“And what about you, hmm? Where’s home to you?” she asks.

She knows he was born and raised in Nebraska, knows he was reared by a single mom who didn’t put up with anyone’s bullshit, but she also knows he hasn’t been back there in fifteen years.

Her eyes follow him as he moves his horse in a semi-circle around hers, from her right side to her left, except now their horses are facing opposite directions and Bronn’s thigh is a firm press against hers, they are that close. He hums and tips his head to the side as he regards her. Another shrug.

“So far it’s been wherever the wind blows me,” he says quietly, clucking his tongue once to sidle his horse a single step forward so that now their hips are aligned, here in their two saddles.

“So far?” Margaery whispers, and even though the world is cracked so wide open out here with the endless sky above and the sea of grass all around them, the air is so hushed and still that it almost sounds like a shout.

“Well,” he says, lifting a hand to cup her cheek, and _oh_ , how lovely it is, to have the touch and the feel of him, even though his fingers are like ice when they slide down below her ear and onto the back of her neck. Margaery suppresses a whimper. “Lately I’ve been realizing there are some pretty neat things about sticking around in one place for a while.”

“What kind of things,” she says breathlessly.

Her eyes are half closed and her heart leaps like licks of flame, because she’s not an _idiot,_ she knows what’s going to happen, which is why she’s already lifting a hand to snag him by the lapel of his coat, head tilted in time to catch his kiss.

Their mouths are open at the ready, lips a nice fit as they linger in this half-chaste moment, like that hang time between a full exhale and the next gasp of air. His thumb brushes her earlobe. She leans further into him, goes so far as to prop herself up with a hand braced against his thigh. She can feel him hum.

“These kinds of things,” he murmurs against her mouth.

And then the kiss reopens and she’s got the taste of him, coffee and the faint smell of horses, that good warm-body smell that for some reason makes her think of exposed-brick fireplaces and wood-paneled family rooms. It’s a _good_ kiss. Slow, seeking, savoring. And by god does she want more.

Wherever the wind blows, she thinks. That’s starting to sound pretty damn good.

 

 

“I can’t believe it’s over,” Dany says, leaning against a post on the back porch of Mr. Selmy’s ranch in Utah.

She’s standing with Drogo and Brienne, the woman who tends the ranch for Barristan while he holds down the fort up in Wyoming. They’re watching everyone set up the big bonfire for Margaery’s insisted-upon celebration before everyone packs up and heads out tomorrow morning.

“Bronn,” Brienne shouts with her hands cupped around her mouth. “Kindly put that woman down so you can go make sure the horses are rubbed down.”

“Why not do both?” he shouts back, hefting a squealing Margaery higher onto his back before heading off to the stables.

Dany smiles. There’s no question about what her friend is going to want to talk about on the plane ride home.

She can’t tell if she’s more relieved, knowing she doesn’t have to crawl her tired ass back into the saddle tomorrow morning, or more heartbroken, knowing she has to say goodbye to her pretty palomino horse who let her braid wildflowers into his mane. She can’t tell if she’s over the moon about a future filled with daily showers and sleeping in past 5:30am, or devastated to leave the exhilaration and thrill of loping across a field or ambling down a canyon on a switchback trail in her past.

One thing’s for certain, though, and that is how much she’s dreading saying goodbye to Drogo, and how hard it is for her to admit that the dread feels an awful lot like heartache.

“You did good,” the man of her thoughts says, all rough-tough gravelly voice as he nudges her shoulder with his elbow. “I took you for a princess at the start, but you manned up, for sure.”

“Excuse you,” Dany says, finger instantly in the air as she rounds on him and taps his chest with the aforementioned digit of feminism. “I _womaned_ up, pal. And don’t you forget it.”

“How could I,” he says with a deep laugh she can feel in her fingertip where it’s pressed against his thermal shirt and his pectoral – oh, _god,_ his pectoral –  and it’s rich and roiling and so lovely that quite frankly, she decides to keep it there. “You’re unforgettable, Dany. Even if you weren’t so goddamn cute, you’d still be unforgettable.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Brienne mutters, and both Dany and Drogo glance her way in time to see her sigh, roll her eyes and plod down the porch steps towards the gathering party. “Tormund! Help me get the grill started.”

Drogo grins when he turns back to gaze down at her, and Dany tilts her head back to take in the full size of him. Never in her life has she wanted to be hefted over a man’s shoulder like a sack of flour and carried to some candlelit bedroom before, but right now she’d pay cash money for the opportunity. And she’s got a sneaking suspicion his thoughts are cruising down that same dark and twisting lane, what with the way he’s looking at her mouth, what with the way he slowly wraps his sun-beaten hand around her finger and manipulates the grasp so that suddenly, and way too smoothly for a bumpkin like him, they’re holding hands.

“What were we just talking about?” he asks her mouth.

Like either of them want to be talking right now.

“You were telling me how unforgettable I am,” she says with the haughty arch of her eyebrows.

She’s had enough experience with inferior men – her brother included in the masses – to know how to weed out the fuck boys, and nothing does it quite like a woman’s confidence.

“So unforgettable I can’t even remember my own words, let alone my own thoughts. Well, all my thoughts except one,” he says.

“Oh?” Dany says, trying to keep cool and not like, actually _preen_ right now, or celebrate the fact that this tall tasty drink of water isn’t an insecure sack of shit. And suddenly she realizes there’s still hope to be had, in people, in men. “Just one thought?” she says, thinking of Sansa back in their apartment all those weeks ago, talking about that one thing they’ve been missing.

“Juuust one,” he says, drawing it out as he draws her into his chest by virtue of their still-clasped hands.

“I’m thinking I’ve got the exact same thought,” she says, sliding her hand free from his so she can lift her arms and tug him down to her, two hands to the shoulders she can just barely reach.

Drogo bows his head, has to hunch his shoulders to reach her, but in the end he simply grunts and wraps his arms around her waist, straightens and lifts her clean off her feet so she can kiss him. She wishes she’d taken a few more showers than just the one, she’s been that dirt-covered for so long, but at least she’s just brushed her teeth, and he tastes like about two dozen Altoids which only serves to make her giddy, knowing he’s been planning on or hoping for a kiss.

He’s a hungry kisser, that kind of kisser that makes a girl feel like she’s the last drop of water for a man dying of thirst, and it’s almost overwhelming until she gets into the rhythm of him, and then all of a sudden she’s the breathless one, up here in his arms like she’s on Mount Everest.

If Dany had a flag, she’d claim him for America, for Los Angeles, for women everywhere except really only _her,_ thank you very much.

“Get a room, you two,” Sandor mutters as he strides past them below the porch.

“I could only be so lucky,” Drogo says, half caveman grunt as he draws back from the kiss to gaze at her, here where she’s slightly taller than him by virtue of his embrace.

He’s teasing and kidding and messing around, but she’s been around the block a few times and she knows he’s also hoping for that fleeting flicker of a chance, some final goodbye that will leave them slicked with sweat and panting. And suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly, it sounds like a delicious, yearning sort of way to pass the evening. Hell. She’s already halfway to sack-of-flour status. Dany wonders if this ranch has any candles.

“Listen, buster,” Dany says with a grin, “so long as it’s not a tent in the mud, I’m yours.”

 

Do not cry, do not cry, don’t you _dare_ cry, Sansa Stark, she thinks as she watches Tormund, Brienne and Val load up everyone’s luggage in an old school bus, but it’s not the long bumpy ride to the airport in a damn _school bus_ that’s making her tear up. No.

It’s the way Sandor’s looking at her right now.

They’re standing outside in the packed-dirt front yard, wind-whipped and sun-dazzled on a cold autumn morning, and he is open and guileless and maybe a _little_ salacious on account of that, not that she isn’t completely digging the lascivious way his gaze drifts, on occasion, from her eyes and face down to the rest of her. It kind of makes her want to strike a pose, like the ones Wylla did for Robb in that pinup photoshoot she booked for their two year anniversary. It definitely makes her feel good though, and wanted, unlike stupid butthead Henry who had apparently been affair-hopping their entire relationship.

But here? With this big lug of a man? Here it’s all want, it’s all desire and in some strange way after just a few weeks, it’s trust, too. He’s no liar. He’s no poet, either, but she’s had enough bullshit in past relationships to understand that whatever Sandor’s got going on is something she doesn’t want to let go of. Something she doesn’t want to say goodbye to. And dammit, that’s all it takes.

“Hey, sunshine, you’re crying,” he says with a frown and he steps into her to wipe her cheek with the back of his knuckle, a little over-firm on the tender skin below her eye, but a gesture is a gesture and she’s more than happy to take it.

“I know. I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” she says.

“Why are you sorry?” he asks, shaking his head as he pulls her into a hug.

“I don’t know,” she laughs, her voice muffled against his chest as she winds her arms around his middle. “I guess I’m not sorry, I’m just sad to go.”

“You like cattle that much, city girl?” Amusement, dark and rich in the scrape of his voice.

“I like _you_ that much,” she says with a sniff, because honesty, because wide blue sky, because openness is what she came for and openness is what she’s found.

Sandor stills in her arms.  Part of her worries that she’s gone too far, that she’s made too many assumptions when really all they’ve done is make out a few  times – okay, more than a dozen times and yes she’s counted because she has _got_ to blog about this whenever she finds herself some Wi-Fi – but then she remembers all their conversations. He’s not big on the whole trust thing, either, considering what he’s been through himself. Isn’t used to honesty being a balm instead of another wound.

“I mean it,” she says, pulling back a bit just so she can gaze up at him.

It’s hard to be up front and vulnerable, downright freakin’ terrifying after what she’s been through, but there’s something cleansing about being that way with an honest man. He might not feel the same way but he’ll tell her right here and right now, won’t pussyfoot around the issue, not like a man his size could ever do anything called pussyfooting.

“Good,” Sandor says finally, still frowning in a half-scowl as he regards her. He nods, quirks a small smile in the corner of his mouth on the unscarred side. Nods again. “Good, because me too.”

If Sansa were Bridget Jones right now, this is where a long string of confetti emojis would scroll by on the bottom of the movie screen.

“Promise me you’ll call me,” she whispers through a smile that’s stained with tears both happy and sad, both crushed and elated.

“Hell, sunshine, I’ll even go so far as to visit you, if you’ll have me,” he says. “Although I’ve never heard much good stuff about L.A.”

“That’s because it’s a shithole,” Bronn says cheerfully as he and Margaery walk up to them, and he’s got a casual arm slung across her shoulders like they’ve been together for years.

“It is _not_!” both Sansa and Margaery exclaim in unison. “Jinx!” they say together again, and then they laugh, and then Sansa frowns.

“Wait, where are your bags? And why aren’t you even dressed?” Sansa knows her friend very well, and there’s no way in hell Margaery Southern Belle Tyrell would _ever_ go to an airport wearing a pullover sweatshirt and Uggs, let alone fly first class in a sweatshirt and Uggs.

“Yeah, so about that,” Margaery says, glancing up at Bronn before shrugging out from under his arm, and she links her arm in Sansa’s and tugs her away from Sandor like they’re going for a Sunday stroll in the park.

“About what?” Sansa says with a confused frown as they walk away from the half-loaded school bus towards a small duck pond.

“I’m, um, I’m not going back,” Margaery says finally.

She’s already wincing when Sansa wrenches her arm free to stagger back and stare incredulously at one of her best friends. Sansa thought she only had to say goodbye to Sandor, but now _Margaery?_

“You’re drunk,” she says, but tears prick her eyes because she knows her friend and she knows her expressions, and this is Margaery Iron Lady Tyrell, even with the softness in her eyes and the downtown of her mouth.

“Sorry, babe,” Margaery says with the shake of her head. “I’m um, you know, I’m going where the wind takes me for once,” she says down to her feet before she lifts her head and gazes at Sansa, and suddenly she’s all golden hope and happiness with that look in her eye. “I don’t have anything back in L.A., not really, except you guys. ‘Home,’” she says, doing little finger quotes by her face, “is back in Georgia where I do _not_ want to be turned into another country club brood mare. I don’t have a job, my name isn’t even on Dany’s lease, and I just fell in _love_ with everything out here.”

“You and Dany have been roommates for three years,” Sansa says, all grasp for straws as she hugs herself and stares at the three ducks paddling in circles like it’s not freezing out here. Three little ducks. Three little besties. Sansa sucks back a sob and looks at Margaery. “She’s going to be devastated.”

“I already told her, honey,” Margaery says with a sad smile, arms outstretched as she walks to Sansa and wraps her up in a hug. “And she’s okay with it. Remember, San, you wanted us to find that one thing.”

“Yeah, but you can’t make your one thing a cowboy,” Sansa says, sniffling against Margaery’s shoulder.

“Oh stop!” Margaery says with a laugh, and she kisses Sansa’s cheek before drawing back so they can regard each other. “Honey, that’s just a man over there. I’m talking about _this_ ,” she says, lifting an arm to thrust it upwards and gesture to the sky and the mountain ranges all around them. “I want the wind to take me, and it did. _You_ did, because you took me here.”

“So I’m the stupid wind beneath your stupid wings?” Sansa says with a huff, and then a laugh when Margaery rolls her eyes and wipes away a few tears of her own.

“Yeah, San, you are. I love you, babe, and I’ll come visit you too. Besides, now you can have my room instead of sleeping on the pullout, and if I recall correctly, Sandor offered to come visit. I have a feeling _that_ kind of a visit is going to require a closed door and maybe some soundproofing.”

Sansa laughs, sniffles, laughs again.

“Yeah, well, it better.”

“All right, everybody!” Brienne shouts, loud and clear even from so far away. She’s standing into the doorway of the school bus like she’s captain of a ship. “Time to board up!”

Sansa sighs. “Well unless Dany is pulling a little stunt like you, she’s got to get her ass in gear. Where is she?”

“Ah,” Margaery says with a nod, linking her arm with Sansa’s again as they both walk very slowly towards Sansa’s bright yellow chariot. “Well, last I heard, and believe me when I say _heard_ , is that she and Drogo are um, saying goodbye one last time.”

Sansa snorts and then both girls laugh.               

“She swears up and down that they’re not going to exchange numbers but she sure can’t quit telling him how much she’s gonna miss him. Maybe Drogo’ll be coming to L.A. with you, Sandor,” Sansa says, hip cocked out to bump his.

“And how many goodbyes has it been?” Margaery asks, just as they reach Bronn and Sandor, who are talking weather and rodeo with Brienne.

“By my count, three,” Sansa says. 

“Trust me when I say this,” Sandor says as he tugs Sansa back into another hug. “It’s four. I made the sorry mistake of trying to take a shower this morning. Let’s just say that I now understand the powers of flexibility yoga can offer.”

“Oh for pity’s sake,” Brienne sighs.


End file.
